Morning Brew: Tuesday, April 13

Billie Jean King will be going back to her roots on ESPN’s show Homecoming. The show features athletes visiting places that mean a lot to them in their career, and the legendary tennis player will take the cameras to the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Long Beach, California, where she won her first tournament as a 12-year-old. It tapes tomorrow, and you can get tickets to go watch if you’re in the area.

Here’s a great deal — if you contribute any amount of money to a new documentary/multimedia project Embodiment: A Portrait of Queer Life in America, you receive a mixtape of artists who are in support of the project, including Amanda Palmer, Kaki King, Rachael Cantu and Tender Forever. And when it becomes fully funded, you won’t have to wait to see it in theaters — the videos will appear for free on the website.

Kate McKinnon is starring as Dusty Springfield in a current production of Dusty Springfield: Live in Heaven. If you’re in NYC, don’t miss your chance to hear Kate belt out “Son of Preacher Man.” I’m sure she’ll play up the gay side of Dusty because, well, how could she not?

I felt like it’s still very difficult to feature gay and lesbian characters who quote unquote appear very gay or lesbian. Brooke Smith on the show was rather butch and I think that turned off some viewers. I think ABC got complaints and it turned people off and so the solution was to bring in a more feminine version of Brooke Smith [Jessica Capshaw], a more palatable version of that character. I thought that was really unfortunate. I still think that it’s easier for America to see two straight-acting gay characters as opposed to anyone who comes close to the gay stereotype.

Well that’s extremely unfortunate, and gives me the idea we might see femme and pregnant lesbians on TV, but coming across a butch one might take a lot longer. Unless, of course, they are playing a serial killer or stalker of some sort. Those always seem to work well for writers.

Huge congrats to out lesbian composer Jennifer Higdonwho won the Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto. I bet she gets so many chicks with her romantic classical playing.(Hat tip, Joyfulgrrrl!)

The feminist rapper is back!

“For the full answer to that, read my master’s thesis.” I would like to encourage all of you in school to use this line, whenever possible, to turn creeps down.